Could the same result plus a bit more not be accomplished by utilizing flags VS what someone views as too highly paid content?

Not exactly the same results as flagging (aka downvoting) just shifts rewards to other posts. If the problem is simply too many rewards being chased by too few truly valuable contributions then the shifting means other (less noticed) abuse and low value content being better rewarded, and an even higher incentive to post more of those.

I'm all in favor of flagging of garbage or anything that you think doesn't add value, and in this case we can set a baseline of add more value than burning.